This Christmas weekend, families came together for a full-house performance of Shen Yun Performing Arts in the city of Hartford, Connecticut.
“It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. Just the work of art and all the history and the culture, it just really brings it all to life,” said Al Montoya, director of the Manchester VA Medical Center.
He brought his daughter to Shen Yun as a Christmas present, since she always wanted to go.
“And I wanted to come for a long time. So it’s nice that I can finally come now, and it’s really nice and pretty, and I enjoy it a lot,” said Avja Montoya.
“There’s tons of energy. I think from every set that there is … you feel the energy, you feel like you’re in that culture,” added Al Montoya.
“I feel joy,” said John Brubaker is the principal of Professional Resume Plus.
He saw Shen Yun with his wife and said it was a special experience.
“It was brilliant. It’s a gift from God,” he said. “It uses an absolutely beautiful art form with many different types of art … and it’s very emotional, very beautiful. And our compliments to the people that put this together. It’s a very important thing for people to see, not just enjoyable.”
“I feel beauty, I feel creativity, I feel a combination of art and athleticism,” added his wife, Jane Brubaker. “And just a creative expression that, you know, I’m very sorry that the people of China can’t see this.”
Shen Yun is based in New York, with the mission to revive ancient traditional Chinese culture before the Chinese Communist Party destroys it.
The show brings ancient legends, folk dance, and modern-day persecution tales—inspired by true events—to the stage, which means Shen Yun is banned from performing in China.
“I feel that it’s unfortunate what’s happened. And knowing that this beauty, and color, and light is something that everybody needs to know about, and unfortunately, they can’t show something like this in China right now. It’s really sad,” said Hillary Talmadge, who works in marketing and business development. “But like I said, the exposure to Americans like myself, and even maybe people who have come from China to live here as citizens can share that with maybe relatives who live there, and hopefully not get ostracised for it.”
“It was beautiful. I mean, I’ve enjoyed dancing for a long time. But this is very different and something that exposed me to a different culture and something magical actually,” she added.
After seeing the poster, she and her family knew they wanted to come here for Christmas. Her father brought her family to see Shen Yun for a Christmas celebration.
“It’s not just dance, it’s not just, you know, a flashy show … I think there’s more to it, it’s a lot deeper than that … It was very spiritual,” she added.
“I loved the performance. It was just breathtaking. And the choreography … of the formations and the dances just really speak to your soul,” said Angela M. Grout. “And I had to keep kind of looking over the balcony to remind myself that it was live music, because the orchestra was just perfection.”
Angela Grout is an author and has published several books. She has waited for four years to see the show.
She said Shen Yun gives her hope—especially in this period of time.
“We’ve been living in this world of like, isolation, even though we’re all a community and we’re all feeling the same thing, and we’re all kind of isolated in our own homes or communities … you know that there’s something bigger. And this show really brought that,” she said. “And that savior is in all of us—to know, to have faith, and to believe that we’re going to get through this, we’re going to get through this together. Because there’s something bigger out there. And all of this is brought to us through the art of dance and music, its sound visually touching our lives without words.”
“This is about peace, this is about loving the world and knowing that there’s someone who brought us here, you know, we’ve all been sent to Earth for a reason,” she added. “And if that reason may just be to find our savior, to get saved, but it also is to fulfill our purpose. And the dancers on that stage really fulfilled their purpose.”
Shen Yun will be performing in Florida, California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina this week.
NTD News, Hartford, Connecticut.